In My Veins
by kadeccasinclair
Summary: She's lost in herself and he's the map she never thought would feel the same.
This is a little oneshot I made :). I hope you like it!

Update on Summer Rain: A new chapter is coming out before the end of this month!

Xoxo,

Kadecca

* * *

The moment I heard the footsteps moving up the black stairs, I knew he had come. I knew under these twinkling stars and the soft glow of the moon that he was here and every cell within my body was ready for him.

"Don't do this, Riley. Your home is here. Everyone loves you, Riley? Why do you have to leave? You're the one who-," he began but I interrupted him quickly.

"I'm not anyone. And I will never be. And I know, ok? I know that you're a good person and that you want to help me." I touched his cheek, seconds away from grasping closer, from pulling him to me. I retreated, my fingers unfurling and moving back to my side. "But let's be entirely honest right now. You can spend your time on so many better things than me. And I know you've enjoyed these past months of doing that even if you try to deny it. The only thing I need to do, the only thing I can do…"

"It's to let you go. So you can be your own person and you can spend your time with whoever truly deserves your attention. You can pay attention to Maya, to my best friend-"

"But I want you, Riley!" I shook my head, my heart clenching. His face was an open book; it was so expressive, so filled with emotions I couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle seeing him in that kind of pain because of me. "You're right. I don't want you."

My heart sunk once more. It was to be expected.

"I _need_ you." He whispered, his hand reaching up. His hand drifted on my cheekbone, lightly grazing my lip, before pushing a strand of brown behind my ear. "I _need_ you. I'm not burdened to be with you in any way, Riley."

"Don't!" I pulled back, taking a step from him. The cold breeze whipped around us as if it was chilling me even more, chilling me down to the deepest cell within the bone. "Don't say this just because I'm in this position because that hurts even more. We're not together and honestly everyone is right. We don't belong together and we never have. That's why you have Maya now, that's why you two have each other in the most intimate and perfect way that we never had. It's because it's her, because it's not me."

A shudder ran through me. My breath was like a machine, creasing at every hollow piece until it all flew apart and tore through my body. I was a levy, and I was swinging free now.

"I won't ever be her, Lucas, and I can't change that. You deserve someone who's like her. Someone who-"

"Someone who what, Riley?" His face was incredulous, his hands thrown up as if he genuinely confused, as if he genuinely did not understand why I was saying this.

Lucas was a good guy, no arguments would dispute this, and he had always been the one I wanted. Maybe I even needed him, maybe I needed his touch and his comfort and his reassurance. Maybe I spent nights craving his words and his gentle breath, missed running my fingers against his hair and intertwining my hand with his. Maybe I hated the empty air when he had left me and when he had fallen for my best friend. Maybe I hated that they were together, but it wasn't like I had a choice. I had watched those two fall for one another, had seen how they deserved one another. Maya hadn't had anything, and now she had my world. She deserved it.

It took the weight of the sky to lift the corners of my mouth into a smile.

"Someone who's perfect." Silence engulfed us.

"You deserve someone who can love you, who you can love, and who everyone loves. You deserve someone who's perfect in every way to you, and I know Maya is that for you. She's the blonde beauty-"

"That was a stupid label I made with Zay! It didn't mean anything, Riley, it never did!" He shouted, interrupting me. I held a hand in front of me, silencing him. I needed to finish and he needed to see I was right. Perhaps it was the first unselfish thing I had done in what must be months since him and Maya first started whatever the hell they were doing.

"You know it makes a difference. You know it, Lucas. Don't you dare lie to me right now." The hollow pit within my body was growing larger, engulfed by the flames clawing around a circle of fire. I was becoming more hollow with each moment, almost like a shell. I wish it'd tear my heart away, too. I _couldn't_ feel this everyday once I finished. "She's the one you've always dreamed of. Honestly, if it hadn't been her we wouldn't have ever...we wouldn't have ever been anything. So, please, spare me with explanations. I don't need any.

"You're right up there with Farkle as the best guy I've ever met." I said, stepping forward. A smile rose on my face as I took him in. Gently, I touched my hand with his and guided it to the empty air between us, gently intertwining it. He immediately grabbed back, returning twice the pressure. "I love you, Lucas. And I know a part of you loves me too, but you need to let go of that part. You deserve so much more."

"Stop."

His face twisted and I saw a tear slide down his cheek. _He's crying. I've never seen him cry. Did I do something wrong?_

Lucas pulled me to him, forcing my feet to stumble behind me. He took his hands from me and lifted them to my cheeks, placing them in a position I knew was too intimate to be what I need us to be, but I didn't have the heart to stop him. I was too weak to stop him, but I couldn't help but feel so little guilt for relishing his contact. Maya would have all the time in the world once this was over.

"You're the most incredible girl I've ever met." I shook my head, trying to interrupt something, but his face clenched. "Stop, this is my turn, ok Riley? Because I can't understand you anymore. I can't!"

"You're beautiful and, yes, you're imperfect but that's the best type of perfect. Your eyes are what makes home and your heart is so large, so incredibly large, that sometimes I can't understand it. I can't understand how you can make everyone else feel so perfect, how you can build those smiles out of thin air and plaster happiness to everyone else's hearts and how or why you can't do the same to yourself. Because you deserve it. You deserve it more than anyone else I know. You deserve to be happy and I know you leaving because of Maya and I isn't going to make you happy."

My gaze shifted down. He was lying. I knew he was lying with every fiber in my body. Somehow he had convinced him of this lie. This was all that was wrong with us. The only way he could make me happy was if he lied to himself, if he lied and said that I deserved him.

"Unless this isn't about Maya and I." His eyes widened and I felt my heart skip a beat. There was no way… "Unless this is about you. This is about you not being good enough."

I tried to speak, I really tried. I tried to get a noise to come out of my throat, but nothing came out. Not a sound.

It was strange how silence answered things for him. I saw his face take on a different look, a look almost of not anger but _fury_. And then, in that split second, I saw something different. The second I saw the terror arise on his face I knew he had figured me out.

" _No_. Riley, tell me it's not true." He almost whispered, his words thick and clouded with gallons of emotion. Each syllable made me want to break, made the hollow shell of a body I was crack and, to be honest, I had no idea what was underneath. "Tell me you're not…"

"Oh my god." One of his hands fell to his sides and the other reached up to ruffle his hair in frustration. The gaping hole of his mouth kept moving as if it was struggling to find the right words, as if he was struggling for words the same way I was. "There is no trip is there? There is no Los Angeles. There never was one, was there?"

I was desperate to say something now, desperate to convince him that what he was thinking was so far from the truth and that he shouldn't even be considering that possibility. My mouth kept opening, kept clenching and my tongue seemed to flop around endlessly but nothing dared to come out.

The terror completely took hold of him and he practically snatched my floating hand before swinging open my window as if it was a mere feather. When I looked down at his hand it was _shaking_ and _trembling_ for all it could and suddenly I couldn't breath anymore, I couldn't see anything anymore except for what I knew he'd find.

He pulled me in and the second he stopped pulling me around like a doll I knew it was over. He made a sound, a heartbreaking cry, while looking down at the spilled contents of my nightstand and even though most of me was screaming, screaming that I had been found out, that little bit inside of me the fire hadn't yet consumed was crying in relief. Because, inside, I really was just screaming for help.

"No no no no, Riley please." He whipped around so fast I was scared he had been possessed and, within a second, I was on my bed and he was kneeling down under me, desperately holding my cheeks. There was so much disbelief in his eyes, so much _pain_.

"Don't tell me...you can't." I saw the exact moment he snapped. "You can't do this to me, Riley. What the hell would've happened if I hadn't found this, if I hadn't realized that there was no Los Angeles, that you wouldn't even have had a future? What hell would that have done to Maya, to Farkle, to Zay?! What the hell would that have done to me, Riley?!" His voice cracked and his breaths trailed off the same time that mine came shallower.

The tears came down my eyes so fast I couldn't feel it trickle down. I tipped my head back and looked around, looked anywhere except Lucas. I couldn't see him right now, couldn't see his face because I knew I'd break and I had already screwed things up enough. My eyes stopped when I looked at the space next to him. I could see the spilled pills, the Ziploc of pills we both knew I shouldn't have. It had been counted precisely, too precisely for me to just be popping them for daily use.

"How could you have ever thought that killing yourself would help me?" He said, the despair rushing through him before slamming into me. "You're the one I want, Riley. That's what I wanted to tell you yesterday before you ran off. You're the one I want."

 _He lies_.

"You're the one I need, the one that I dream of, and the one I wake up every day wanting to see. And to think that one day you wouldn't be there...that destroys me."

"Say something, Riley. Please."

His hands guided me back to his eyes. Oh, those eyes. They weren't a single color, no they were everything. They were _my_ everything. They were the lights that guided me home whenever I had the temptation to raise the blade, whenever I had the temptation to leap off the roof of the building.

 _And to think that one day you wouldn't be there...that destroys me._

 _That destroys me._

 _Destroys me._

 _Me._

If I had taken my own life, I would have taken myself away from him.

He had always told me I was the one that kept him under control, the one that brought out the good things that he wanted himself to be remembered by. Maya brought out the passion with him, the raw love, but I was the one who elicited the parts he wanted. I made him who he wanted to be.

He'd lose that part of him he wanted to be.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. I reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear, watching him shiver under my touch. "I just couldn't take it anymore."

"We'll take care of it, Riley, I swear. I swear to God I'll help you, that I'll make you happy. I swear to God I'll bring you back, Riley, and I swear to God I'll make sure that you see yourself the way I see you because _goddamn_ if you could just see yourself like I see you, if you could look at the mirror and see yourself, you wouldn't ever doubt yourself. I love you, Riley, and I cannot imagine what I would've ever done without you. I don't want to imagine it because I love you. Always have and always will."

For the first time in so long, I smiled. I smiled a real smile, not some fake one when I tried to delude someone into believing something. I smiled because, finally, _finally_ I was home again. He was my anchor; he was the one that brought me back to this Earth.

"This won't be easy, Lucas," I warned. "I have so many problems, so many things that make me screwed up. I'm broken, Lucas, and one day I might blow up. I don't want you to be hit by me when I do."

"You won't. I don't believe for one second that you ever will." He smiled. "You're so tough, Riley, and now you don't have to be."

He leaned forward and, when his lips touched mine, I felt something rip through me. I loved him, that was obvious, but something so extraordinary moved within me. His lips were teh catalyst for a movement, his touch and his love the elixir and cure for the fire that had consumed me for so long.

He pulled back for a second, touching his forehead against mine. "I love you."

He was the rain on a fire, the soothing balm to the endless cuts on my heart, and he was the one to finally chase the flames out of my hollow body. He was everything.

Before pushing my lips back onto his, I said it too.

"I love you." And somehow, it sounded so, so beautiful.


End file.
